Horrors or happiness? Do gloomy stories and ghoulish places upset you? Cheer up.

Oh No
I can see why you would not buy a house where a murder happened last week, unless the price was low. You would need to clean it up and sightseers could be irritating. I can also see that you might want to wash clothes bought secondhand. However, I was impatient when I read that somebody said they could not keep old crockery and clothes from ancestors because of the bad vibes.

Old buildings
Let's look at this logically, and carry it to the extreme. If you don't want anything associated with anybody who has died, you could never preserve a building over 100 years of age.   You would have to rebuild all old hotels and office buildings. All museums would be shut.Hospitals
It does make sense to limit visitors to hospitals to cut down on infection, brougth in or taken out. However, you need to balance the benefits. If you are over-sensitive, you could not go into a hospital to get an x-ray because of all the bad vibes. Doctors and nurses could not to their jobs because every hospital has seen at least one body.

Frankly, every hospital has a morgue hidden on the premises. (Admittedly hard to find. the word morgue does not appear on the hospital signposts.

I drove all around Barnet hospital trying to find the morgue to see the body of my late uncle and went back to reception a second time to get directions.

I used to wonder how nurses and doctors manage to carry on.

Why undertakers are sometimes seen joking around and acting apparently disrespectfully to the dead in coffins. There are various ways of coping:

1 Ignore the situation.
Don't stop to read the inscriptions. Don't think about it.

2 Note It but don't dwell on it.
Note it briefly, then quickly move on.

3 Shrug
That's life.

4 Laugh

Treat it as a joke. (Hence the WWII wartime songs: 'They scraped him off the tarmac like a pound of strawberry jam ...')

5 Concentrate On Helping
War Memorials And Plaques
If you allow yourself to be worried by every sign, you would need to keep out of town centres because of the war memorials.

If you cannot cope with mentions of deaths and disasters, you cannot send your children to traditional schools because they have wall plaques mentioning of those who died in WWI and WWII.

Travel Trouble
Stations and Trains
Don't go into the underground stations.
Don't go on trains. They go through level crossings where there have been accidents.
In the USA I was upset to read on a long bridge that people has lost their lives buildings. But the same applied to the Channel tunnel. In fact construction has the highest fatality rate of any profession or trade.

I have since made a mental note and found that almost every project I have visited has a memorial somewhere.

Cities
Avoid all cities, especially London and Europe. They have Roman remains and were rebuilt over bomb sites. The same applies to many cities such as East London, Coventry, German cities, Poland, etc.

Any house over 100 years old probably had somebody die in it. Either the old folk died at home. Or the mothers died at home in childbirth. Did I mention the under fives who died?

Famous Homes and Homes Of The Famous
Don't visit the Bronte house in Haworth. The writers all died.

Indoors
Don't visit friends with leather furniture and don't sit on leather chairs in hotels and restaurants and airports.

Natural Objects
Don't touch a shell because it's the house of a sea creature now dead.

Don't go in a wooden building. Don't use a pencil or paper.

Enough of this nonsense. The world has been around thousands of years and thousands of people and animals and plants have died all over it.

Caution
There are places to be avoided, accident black spots.

Positive Thinking
However, having taken all necessary precautions, no point constantly worrying that every item you touch or place you visit might have negative associations.

Plenty of people keenly travel to the WWI and WWII battle sites.  The Titanic exhibition in Ireland. Forewarned is forearmed.

Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Useful Websites
https://www.gobear.com/sg/travel-insurance

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Best and worst toilets in Umbria, Italy - the key!

When you travel you use toilets more than any other facility. Unless you are really cutting down on drink, you may be needing toilets more often than food stops.

Here are some of the delights and disappointments and puzzles I have found in toilets on my travels.

Singapore and Malaysia

Problem
You go into a toilet cubicle and can't find any toilet paper.

Answer
1 The shower on the back or side wall knee high beside the toilet bowl is not for washing the floor but for cleaning yourself.
2 Toilet paper maybe be in one big roll on the wall outside the cubicles or even outside the entrance to the Ladies.

Story
Italy
I had wonderful toilet in the castle hotel Castello Monterone, a restored castle, now with all modern 'conveniences', on the hillside outside Perugia, looking across the valley to the city. On arrival we are shown up a medieval style staircase to the bedrooms.

"I hope you like your bedroom!" says the owner.

Yes, I do. The beds look delightful. But first things first, after a flight from London, Stagnated, on Ryan Air. Here's the 'bathroom', actually a shower room, which I prefer, attached to the bedroom.

The bathroom, sorry, shower room, is all white and clean. White marble tiles, I'm guessing. Bidet. Toiletries. But where's the toilet paper?

As you can see if you look closely at any picture, when you are standing you can see that jets toilet paper is at head height - when you are standing!

Not everybody gets to stay in a castle hotel. But you might go to a little local restaurant in the capital of Umbria, Perugia. In Perugia, we visited a regional restaurant which had the most wonderful tiles in the toilets. Colourful. Black, white, red. Astonishing. Delightfully different. So this was one of the best decorated toilets. Such character.

The man who ran the restaurant was a chatty character, a real foodie, who told us everything about the food, where it was grown, how it was cooked. One small matter was missed. The location of the restaurant toilet.

I found the toilet. I also found the keyhole. But no key. To my dying day, this will remain one of my life's unsolved mysteries. Where was the key? If you know the answer, please tell me.

Yet, I never found a key for the lock. So it was very stressful.

Tip
Go to the toilet with a friend or guide / translator from the host country. They can ask local people or tell you local customs.

Umbriatourism.it

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and author. Please share posts.